Just called Bell Atlantic to order some new phone lines for our company. They couldn't help me because their computers have been down all across Pennsylvania for the past half hour. Just another advance taste of those inconveniences to which we'll all soon be adjusting, huh? Any place else having these problems?

-- Faith Weaver (suzsolutions@yahoo.com), August 13, 1999

Answers

Anyone in Penn know what's going on?

-- Moore Dinty moore (not@thistime.com), August 13, 1999.

Please, computer crashes occur all day, every day, everywhere we go. WHO HASNT gone to the bank, or to an checkout or tried to order something on the phone and heard "Sorry the computers down right now" at least once a week for the last 10 years. The first day they computerized the cash registers at the old Hills supermarket here it crashed 50 times the first week that was 15 years ago or more. Even after Y2k when everything is finally done and some how we figure out how to determine that everything is Y2k compliant we will still see computer crashes each and every day. When you are dead and buried and your great grand kids go to the store or call the phone company or whatever they will experience crashed computers and hopefully wont blame Y3K testing.

-- ABEND (crash@haltrun.com), August 13, 1999.

ABEND - True that systems go down every day, every hour, every moment, somewhere. And some of them MAY BE Y2K related. We see no problem in continuing to list failures. Truth be told, we'll never really know whether the majority of failures are, or are not, Y2K related. Companies won't admit it. So it's incumbent upon us to try to build a data base of failures to see if meaningful patterns can be discerned. It's now being done with oil refinery explosions and chemical plant explosions. Yesterday on one of the threads one of the posters was criticised for posting the Chicago power outage. Why! Aren't we discussing exactly these kinds of possibilities.

To all posters out there: Please continue to post all information relevant to computer failures and power failures. Don't listen to the critics.

-- kalani & katiuska (kalani_hanohano@hotmail.com), August 13, 1999.

The problem is that if nobody can figure out why the things crash the hardcore doomers add it to the list of Y2K failures. Have you seen y2knewswire.com lately? Getting pretty goofy with people posting anything.

-- ABEND (crash@haltrun.com), August 13, 1999.

--hey, know why they're posting anything(outages, explosions , etc)?

ok, lets examine it-- if these things are NOT related to y2k, it's even worse than if they were, because if they're NOT related, when y2k hits, these failures will add up with the y2k failures (we all agree there will be some) and the effect will be even worse.

so sure, we've all heard "our computers are down, sorry, try later", but have you heard it at the bank,....then at the grocery store, then at the gas station....then at your job....then at a department store....then....

get it? That's the problem.

-- Super (slfsl@yahoo.com), August 13, 1999.

I was in the grocery store the other day and the computers were down! No one could use their credit card or ATM card, they had to write a check or not buy anything. It didn't bother me because I pay in cash! It is true that computers do shut down, but I have never seen it this bad before!

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), August 13, 1999.

kalani&katiuska: Are you girls? And if so, do you mudwrestle?

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), August 13, 1999.

It's the computers, damnit! Out with 'em. Walk the plank, overboard,let 'em feel cold steel, I say, and back to lettin' people run things again.

Thus spake Robert Heinlein if he were still here.

-- Sandmann (Sandmann@alasbab.com), August 14, 1999.